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Appeared on: Thursday, February 24, 2005
Hitachi ramps 6-Gigabyte Microdrive to high volume

As the leader in one-inch hard drives, Hitachi is raising the stakes by making available the
new Microdrive 3K6 with a suggested retail price reduction of up to 60 percent.

With 6 GB, the new Microdrive lets consumers carry even more of what they love ?1500-3000
songs, 6,000 pictures (1 MB each) or 8 hours of MPEG-4 video. Hitachi is making all this
possible, now, at a significant price reduction, retailing the 6 GB Microdrive for $299 USD or
pennies per megabyte. Hitachi's new suggested retail pricing represents the best value of
capacity, reliability and performance at a price point that's affordable to virtually all owners of
consumer devices . The Microdrive 3K6 is available in removable Compact Flash Type II and
embedded versions.

Hitachi recently announced plans for a 20-percent smaller one-inch hard drive with 8-10 GB of
capacity. The new drive -- nicknamed "Mikey," the baby Microdrive -- is expected later this
year.

Priced to Sell
For the first time since its 1999 introduction, the new-generation Microdrive product is being
offered at a suggested retail price of $299, representing a 40-percent reduction of Hitachi's
standard debut price of $499 for the one-inch product. The 4 GB version of the Microdrive 3K6
will be offered at $199, representing a 60-percent decrease.

The change in Hitachi 's pricing structure is made possible through a more efficient and
developed, high-volume manufacturing process. It was also implemented to enable a greater
set of users to enjoy the Microdrive benefits of high capacity, portability and flexibility for use
in a host of devices.
Technical Specifications